The Ruined Cities of Mashonalland

THE CHRONICLES OF A CONTRACTOR
J. Theodore Bent FSA FRGS

An intriguing view of the archaeological relics of pre-colonial African cultures seen through the exploratory eyes of a noted Victorian traveler. J. Theodore Bent, F.S.A., F.R.G.S., and his wife Mabel journeyed widely among the Aegean Islands, in Turkey, through parts of Africa and in Arabia, undertaking archaeological research for the British Museum, the Hellenic Society and the Royal Geographical Society. They made three expeditions to Africa and one of these to the fabulous ruins of Zimbabwe, capital of the medieval Monomotapan Empire of South-Central Africa and legendary location of King Solomon's Mines is the subject of this large work.

Bent was the first archaeologist to excavate Zimbabwe and, although his "Phoenician hypothesis" was later discredited by the results of carbon-dating tests, his observations in The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland are interesting and valuable for the light they throw on the life-style of the indigenous people at the time, and on the nature of the settler administration of Mashonaland in the 1890s.

The book is the best-known of Bent's three works, having run to three editions. Bent led several expeditions to Arabia, where he eventually contracted malaria and died, in London, in 1897

Hardback, good condition.

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